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Willow Miller:
Co-Coalition Leader

Willow Miller (she/her) is a rising senior attending Obra Tompkins High School in Houston, Texas. She is passionate about computer science as an MIT BWSI scholar and national advisory board member at the Society Of Women Engineers. As a Texas Co-Coalition leader this year, she plans to advocate for gender equity within STEM careers.  In her free time, she loves playing volleyball, coding, and baking oatmeal cookies. 

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Aarushi Kodakalla:
Co-Coalition Leader

MEET THE 2022 - 2023 EXECUTIVE BOARD

Aarushi Kodakalla (she/her) is a rising senior attending Hebron High School and is excited to join Girl Up as a Co-Coalition leader for the state of Texas. She hopes that working with Girl Up this cycle will allow her to use her voice in her community and her state to speak about issues she is passionate about. In her spare time, Aarushi enjoys digital art and design, spending time with family, and eating sushi with her friends.

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Yasemin Ciftci:
Outreach Director

Yasemin Ciftci (she/her) is a sophomore at Elkins high school. She has loved her past year working with the board and is looking forward to serving her second year in girl up as an outreach director for the girl up SETX coalition. An social and outgoing activist, Yasemin enjoys learning about gender discrimination and environmental issues. Outside of girl up, Yasemin is an officer of her school’s Student Council and Junior Achievement clubs and loves being active in the school environment. In her free time, she enjoys art, baking,  and watching romcoms.

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Caitlyn Caya:
Outreach Director

Caitlyn Caya (she/her) is a senior at Ridge Point High School. Serving her first year on the board, she is grateful to work with other passionate colleagues on combating issues such as period poverty and women empowerment. As a Girl Scout, Paying it Forward Club co-founder, and cohort in FBISD’s Leadership 102 program, she hopes to create a larger impact on her community through the SETX Coalition. This year, the coalition has a lot planned and she is looking forward to it! To pass time, she enjoys having boba dates with her friends, playing the violin, and listening to music.

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Phoebe An:
Advocacy Director

Phoebe An (she/her) is a senior at St. Agnes Academy in Houston’s Chinatown. Her second year on the board, she is very excited to work on the many issues she cares about from gender equality to reproductive rights. Applying to colleges as an International Relations major, Phoebe is incredibly passionate about global security issues, how linguistics plays a hand in terrorism, and how conflicts harm ethnic communities. In her free time, she works in a variety of political settings, studies languages, reads many many many books, practices classical and baroque music, and spends time with her family watching Korean dramas and Vietnamese plays. 

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Cole Woody:
Advocacy Director

Cole Woody (he/him) is a senior at Dulles High School. As a first-year board member, he’s excited to advocate for topics relating to gender issues, increased representation for the LGBTQ+ community, allyship, and comprehensive sex education. As the president of his school’s National Honor Society chapter and competitor in Speech & Debate, Cole is continuously looking for ways he can better impact his community and create long-lasting change after he graduates! Seeking to pursue a degree in genetics, he is interested in further researching the pathogenesis of retroviruses like HIV/AIDS and the ethics concerning future applications of genetic technology.

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Haya Rizvi:
Advocacy Director

Haya Rizvi (she/her) is a senior at Travis High School. This will be her second year as the advocacy director, she has always been  passionate about reproductive rights, gender equality, and mental health. As the president of the Student Wellness Coalition at Travis she has been able to shed light on mental health issues within her community and schools. She aspires to pursue a degree in health policy, as she works with community leaders to fix issues within the system. Outside of school she continues to work with her community and outside resources to help other people, in her free time she loves playing volleyball, reading, and hanging out with her friends. She is also a TV junkie and loves Marvel.

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Gargi Rakhade:
Advocacy Director

Gargi Rakhade (she/her) is a senior at Bellaire High School. This is her first year on the board, but she has been the advocacy director for the  Girl Up Houston chapter and is so excited to continue her advocacy work with Girl Up. Gargi is very passionate about reproductive rights, intersectional feminism, and female voices and empowerment in the media and politics. Gargi is also a big environmental activist and is planning to major in environmental science in college! In her free time, Gargi loves to read, listen to music, and hang out with her friends and her dog!

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Anushka Aggarwal:
Events Director

Anushka Aggarwal (she/her) is a junior at Dulles High School. As a first-year board member, she is very excited to work with this group to advocate for reproductive rights, mental health and gender standards, and women empowerment. Anushka is also passionate about science, and she is involved in various endeavors at her school that demonstrate her interest in research and creating a long-lasting change in her community. Apart from that, in her free time, she enjoys playing the guitar, piano, and clarinet, reading books, and listening to Taylor Swift. She is greatly looking forward to all of the coalition’s plans this year to promote the voices of women and bridge gender disparity!

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Lakshmi Sunder:
Events Director

Lakshmi Sunder (she/her) is a senior at the Kinder High School for Performing and Visual Arts, with a concentration in creative writing. She has been involved in Girl Up since freshman year and currently serves as the events coordinator for the Southeast Texas Coalition, the outreach coordinator for the Houston branch, and the president of her school’s Girl Up chapter. Lakshmi is particularly passionate about sexual health and reproductive justice, intersectional feminism, and diverse representation in media. Outside of Girl Up, Lakshmi enjoys writing fiction and poetry, along with working with organizations like Diversify Our Narrative, Apogee Journal, and #TeenWritersProject. 

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Anshuni Kale:
Events Director

Anshuni Kale (she/they) is a junior at Clements High School. This is her second year on the board and she is excited to work with a passionate group of young women to address gender inequality issues present in our current society. Anshuni has a great interest in science and politics, shown by her active involvement in science related organizations and her school’s debate team. In her free time she also enjoys playing the violin, piano and guitar. She is excited to work towards securing integrity and respect regarding the voices of women in our community.

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Nikita Pakal:
Fundraising Director

Nikita Pakal (she/her) is a junior at the John Cooper School. Her first year on the board, she’s excited to be one of the fundraising directors for Girl Up SETX and contribute to making tangible change towards gender equity in the greater Houston Area. A passionate public speaker and President of her school’s Model United Nations Club, she loves learning about foreign policy and competing in MUN coferences as well as pursuing independent research, having published two research articles. With aspirations to pursue a career in medicine, she hopes to utilize her role as a board member this year in Girl Up to empower other young women to never be afraid to make their voices heard in STEM-related fields. Outside of her academic life, Nikita loves going out with her friends, listening to The Weeknd, working on a new drawing project, and watching kdramas. 

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Kelly Yin:
Fundraising Director

Kelly Yin (she/her) is a junior at Elkins High School. As a first-year board member, she is excited to work with the coalition to promote gender equity and women empowerment. Kelly is passionate about coding and programming, and she hopes to contribute to breaking the gender barriers in STEM career fields. She also looks forward to taking steps to help end period poverty and the taxation of period products as luxury items. In her free time, she enjoys listening to Taylor Swift, reading, and playing tennis.

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Lana Nguyen:
Public Relations Director

A freshman at Dulles High School, Lana (she/her) is passionate about creating positive change in her community by empowering girls to stand up for what they believe in. Lana believes in creating a more diverse and accepting world by advocating for minorities and marginalized groups. As an Asian American, she is also passionate about empowering Asian voices and increasing representation for all minorities. As one of the PR Directors on the Southeast Texas Coalition, Lana enjoys digital designing and creating graphics. In her free time, she dabbles in photography and filmmaking, and she also enjoys baking and listening to Taylor Swift. 

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Maitri Misra:
Public Relations Director

Maitri (she/they) is a senior at The Village School. This is her first year on the Girl Up Executive Board, and she is incredibly excited to be able to impart lasting change in her community through this new role. They are passionate about not only gender equality, but environmentalism, racial equality, and LGTBQ+ rights. She is also the co-president of her school's Girl Up chapter, and the vice president of her school's book club. They plan on majoring in environmental economics in university. Outside of her passion for advocacy and academics, Maitri also enjoys reading, watching sitcoms, and listening to music (particularly Taylor Swift).

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Maahi Borad:
Club Liason

Maahi Borad (she/her) is a sophomore at Travis High School. She is super excited to collaborate with the coalition and to work with them to impact her community, as this is her first year on the board. Maahi is passionate about business and loves public speaking. She is on Varsity Theatre at Travis and is empowered by the thrill on stage. She is also a part of her school's DECA, Helping Hands, and the president of Best Buddies. In her free time, Maahi is a huge organizer and loves spending time with her friends. She is ready to promote gender equality while also representing the SETX Coalition.

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